Last year, Amazon received bids from 238 cities and regions from across 54 states, provinces, districts and territories across North America. The company said it would make a decision in 2018.

Called HQ2, the new facility will cost at least $5 billion to construct and operate, and will create as many as 50,000 high-paying jobs.

“Getting from 238 to 20 was very tough — all the proposals showed tremendous enthusiasm and creativity,” Holly Sullivan of Amazon Public Policy said in a statement. “Through this process we learned about many new communities across North America that we will consider as locations for future infrastructure investment and job creation.”

The Criteria

Amazon said it evaluated each of the bids based on the criteria it previously outlined, such as proximity to a major airport, ability to attract tech talent and a suburban or urban area with more than 1 million people.

In the coming months, the company said it will work with each of the locations to “dive deeper” into their proposals, obtain more information and evaluate how the city could accommodate Amazon’s hiring plans and benefit its workers and the local community.

Baird analyst Colin Sebastian said he is surprised that cities without major airport hubs — such as Columbus and Nashville — are on the list, considering it was one of Amazon’s main asks.

“Otherwise, there are not too many surprises here,” he told CNN Tech. “However, I’m a bit surprised Houston, Detroit and Minneapolis are not on the list. Their proposals may have simply fallen short.”

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